


We Don't Deserve Love

by goodwineandcheese



Series: For the Love of Life [2]
Category: Monster
Genre: Child Death, Drama, Emotional suffering, Gen, Past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21938020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodwineandcheese/pseuds/goodwineandcheese
Summary: Grimmer and his wife experience the worst tragedy a parent could ever know. He only wishes he knew what it felt like.
Relationships: Wolfgang Grimmer/His Wife
Series: For the Love of Life [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1581775
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	We Don't Deserve Love

**Author's Note:**

> Another piece in the "Grimmer's past with his wife" series I apparently decided I'm doing. This is an extremely painful one because it deals with the immediate aftermath of their son's death, so, you know, infant death is discussed quite a bit.
> 
> Named for the song by Arcade Fire that is 100% Grimmer & his wife and fucks me up every time

The small body had stopped breathing.

Just yesterday, everything had been fine. The boy was quietly content, and seemed comfortable when Grimmer held him. He was warm in his father's arms. So close to his chest, Grimmer could feel the small body breathing, the tiny ways he moved, whispers of breath that tickled his skin. Nothing had seemed wrong then. Not when he said goodnight to his son, and not in the few hours they had managed to sleep before he woke them with his cries. Not the morning following. It had been so sudden, early in the afternoon.

Grimmer was no expert in providing care for children. He would never profess to have the same wealth of knowledge as his wife. But, he at least knew the basics. He knew what was bad. So he knew, when he found his son that afternoon lying face down in his crib, that something had gone very _wrong._

He had done everything. All that he could. But with no way to reach a doctor on such critical notice, there was only so much he could do. The infant he carried now was still and silent. This small life he was meant to protect had come so suddenly to an end, without even a sound.

As a parent, wasn’t he supposed to know? To feel a wrongness...but there was nothing. He had sensed nothing amiss, no ominous warning that urged him to see to his son. Grimmer had felt no panic then, upon seeing his child face down in his crib. He had been prompt, had acted in the correct way as swiftly as possible. Calmly. Not once did he worry or fear for his son’s life.

And now that it was lost, he felt no sorrow, no pain.

Grimmer had thought that perhaps in becoming a father, the part of him he had lost might return. He had wondered, since his wife became pregnant, if it would grow - if he could learn to feel as she did. He watched her then; her happiness, the glow that rosied her cheeks and the glimmer in her smile. She was a beautiful woman, but filled with joy she became truly radiant. 

It was a radiance that Grimmer could never share, however hard he tried. There was something missing, something that was never quite right. And he could feel the way she watched _him_ ; concerned perhaps, worried. _”Are you tired? You should take some time off.”_ She saw his emptiness as silent suffering. She tried so hard to warm him, to bring light into his smiles. And he tried his best to shine for her; but by the solemn looks in return, he knew he fell short. It discouraged her, became an ache, a wound. Grimmer couldn’t be the loving husband, the loving father, that he was supposed to be. 

He thought about the small sounds their son would make when he was held, or as he slept. His wife would always smile so fondly, or laugh, or even weep gently. Grimmer couldn’t think to know what any of those might mean; it was a complex response to a simple gesture from a child who couldn’t even know just what those sounds he was making were. And yet somehow they had been such a source of joy to her. 

Grimmer didn’t know those feelings, but he recognized absence. The child he had lost made no sounds, the absence of which felt strangely hollow. In a way, those simple, small gestures had become a part of his daily life. It was strange, for them to be gone. There would be no voice to wake him in the early hours in the night. No more would he feel a tiny weight against his chest, nor the ticklish sensation as a tiny hand gripped his fingers, touched his face, his hair.

He understood that those things were gone. He understood emptiness. But what emotion he should be showing...the way he should respond...

He didn’t know what to be, what to do. He’d been taught how to be “sad”...a downward pull at his lips, the crease of his brow...but it was only hollow, a mask he put on. For one whose feelings were so genuine and true, his wife knew better than to believe his manufactured expressions. Perhaps even resented them. So, Grimmer wore no mask. He chose to be honest in his emptiness. 

She, in turn, felt enough pain for them both.

“We have to _do_ something…” she whispered, her voice hoarse, hoarse from the crying she had already done. She wasn’t looking at him, but when she did, her eyes were red and puffy, and lost, and pleading. “We have to do _something!_ ”

It was already too late for that, far too late, and if her heart weren’t in so much pain, she would know it. All Grimmer could do was shake his head and watch her crumble, watch her despair. She was in agony...this was what mourning looked like. It was irrational and mad, pitiable and volatile. There were so many pieces to it, too many to ever hope to replicate it. Try though he might to absorb and understand it, the emotional volume was overwhelming. This was something far beyond his reach.

She threw herself at him. The force of her weight was startling, drove Grimmer off balance as he felt his usually proud-shouldered wife wilt into his chest, shaking and weeping and clinging to him much as their child had. Fingers closed into the fabric of his shirt, tightening into shaky fists. Her grip was tight...almost painful. This close, he could feel every way she moved, every break in her breaths. With tentative slowness, he put his arms around her. The correct response.

But he still...felt lost. He didn’t know what he should do. 

Grimmer had been taught certain things, certain behaviours. As the husband, was he not meant to remain steady? He should be _sad…_ Grimmer understood he should be sad. But as the man of the house he was meant to stay stolid, the support for his wife. But even so, he knew that he should be crying right now, with her in his arms. How would a father cry? Weeping into her shoulder as she wept into his chest…shaking as much as she, perhaps. Or quietly crying with his head turned, a subtler sadness for only himself. Perhaps it should be something else...frustrated, even angry. Standing, with his head to a wall, beating it with fists until she attempted to placate him, told him to stop. But he couldn’t know which was right for this moment. It was too much, too soon, too sudden for him to practice, to master it, to execute such a complex emotion all at once. 

He allowed her own pain to guide him, absorbed what he could from the emotions she lay so bare to him. The sound that she made was something that Grimmer had never heard...like something inside breaking. He couldn’t know what it was. A piece of her was fractured, but it was a piece that Grimmer did not possess. It wasn’t something that he could heal. Something he could never hope to turn into a mask. 

He could not mourn. But even if that was so, he could try to ease her. That was something that could be done. Not with words...there was no _it will be all right_ for a moment like this one. He simply held her in silence...held her as close as he could, with a hand combing her hair, the other wrapped about her warmly. He rocked just the littlest bit, bowing his head and tucking hers into his chest. Her weeping grew silent, her breathing easier, but even so the tears continued to come, to soak through his shirt.

Silent. It stayed silent for a while, they two crouched together like that. Grimmer couldn’t know how long it was; long enough, he knew that at least by the soreness in his knees where he knelt, though he would never move to stand with her in this condition. What broke the silence - 

“Why…”

He almost hadn’t heard her, spoken against his chest that way. She shifted, slowly, drawing short, painful breaths. Tears stained her face. 

“Why did he have to die?”

It was a very good question. Their son was so young, so little. His birthday...his birthday was in three months and nine days. Not even two years had passed, and it was decided that he should die. That seemed wrong. 

Perhaps Grimmer simply wasn’t meant to be a father. Perhaps this lifestyle, this way of living...the married way, with a happy family to provide for, was something that someone like him couldn’t have. But for her…

She had done nothing to warrant such a horrible punishment.

Grimmer had no answer for her. He knew silence wasn’t what she wanted, but it was all he could give.

* * *

Burying him wasn’t as hard as Grimmer might have thought. It was a solemn day, and so he did his best to act the part. To act it...wholly aware it was nothing but that, simply a facade. He knew that his wife’s tears were real, that her mourning was genuine, that her family and their pain was as real as hers. They had come to share their grief, to wish the couple well. So many words were spoken. _I am sorry for your loss._ So many embraces, and words, and touches, both toward himself and his wife. They were nothing but gestures, in the end; they could not soothe her heart, nor did they hold any value to him.

But he wished...he did wish that he could know what it felt like. He wanted to know what made his wife weep so tirelessly, clutching her chest so. She hadn’t stopped, not since he was buried. Grimmer couldn’t fathom it, what that must feel like. How terribly it ached. Was it burning, or cold? A pain that stabbed, that hollowed out her insides, that seeped into every crevice in her bones...even just a fraction, if he could know only a piece of it, perhaps he could ease her suffering. As it was, she endured alone.

Yet more worrying, her heart seemed broken so irreparably that it had begun to tax her health.

In the days that followed, Liese was not herself. Silent, hollow. Something had left her, a part of her spirit. That spark he had observed in her, the spark he could never replicate. She had wept so much that even her spirit had grown tired. Perhaps a part of it had died, had gone to be with their son. She hardly looked at him, hardly seemed aware he existed. 

She wouldn’t sleep, nor eat. She simply sat, staring, at the kitchen table or stood by the window. She paced sometimes, muttering, whispering, then crying. And Grimmer, more and more, felt like a ghost. Or perhaps, as though he was observing a ghost. She wouldn’t speak to him; he knew that much, that she was avoiding him. Doubtless she would come to him when she was ready, but for now her heart could only handle the pain of their lost son. Pain enough for the both of them. Too much for one single heart to bear alone.

But Grimmer, ghost or not, was still her husband. He still had his duties. As her husband, it was his responsibility to care for his wife, in her wounded state. She was ill; it was a sickness he couldn’t understand, but he knew, at the very least, that she needed to take care of her body, or her condition would only worsen. If the issue was to be broached, it would have to be by him.

He made tea, silently. There were no sounds to pepper the morning; no bustle of her in the kitchen, no idle conversation. Grimmer simply made tea. She was there, as expected, sitting at the kitchen table. She didn’t look up, even as he set the tea in front of her, carefully in its cup. He walked around behind her, lowering to her height, placing a hand on her shoulder. She felt very small, sat there like that.

“I made you something to drink, if you’d like it.”

She continued to stare forward, breathing slowly, unresponsive. Grimmer tried again.

“You haven’t been eating or sleeping well. You need to take care of yourself.”

He tried to use his gentler voice. The one that she liked. It earned a small, sharp intake of breath, and a quiver of her lower lip. She was listening; she heard him, even if she chose not to answer. Persistence would be the key. Grimmer pulled up a chair across from her, so that her vacant stare was, at least, in his direction. Grimmer reached toward her with a hand. Placed it on her own. He made his expression a solemn one; it pulled at his lips, widened his eyes ever so slightly, imploring.

“Liese. I’m worried about you. Please.”

It was quiet, at least at first. 

She pulled her hand slowly from his. Grimmer wondered if she was simply trying to escape him again. But then, as her head lowered, her hands clasped around the warm teacup.

“Worried about me..”

The hazy whisper seemed disbelieving. Grimmer could almost hear the hints of a laugh in those words. He watched as she lifted the teacup in one hand, her bottom lip trembling more and more. It was as though those emotions were waking again, from a tired sleep.

So focused on her, Grimmer didn’t see what was happening. Not until it was much too late.

He felt the splash on his face, a little in his hair. He didn’t react just then, so taken off guard by the act. Before he knew it she was crying again, and suddenly up in his face. He could feel something - a steady thud against his chest, weak but present nonetheless. Liese bore no true strength to back her punches, her angry fists bouncing harmlessly off her husband’s chest. 

“You don’t _care…_ you _never_ cared, about him, or about _me._ You didn’t feel _anything_ , you just stood there, you just…. _stood_ there, and I was...and now you tell me...if you...if you _cared,_ you...you wouldn’t have let him…”

With each exclamation, she grew more hysterical, more broken. Grimmer simply stood, allowed it all; there was nothing else he could do, nothing that would make it better for her. He simply bore the light blows of her shaky fists. The gesture was more sad, more pathetic, than it was hostile. 

It wasn’t long before she broke once more, sobbing as she had before into his chest, her legs giving way as she stumbled forward. Grimmer caught her carefully in his arms. He held her near, and though she seemed to struggle at first, she melted into his embrace with quiet sobs of resignation.

She was angry...terribly angry at him. Those things that she said...they had all been there, for quite some time. It had come now to a boiling point, to a point that she could no longer hold it all in. The true things that she felt about him...in the past, she had viewed his emptiness as his own kind of sadness. But in time, it became something that she resented. He was empty, unloving. What she saw now was a man who wouldn’t cry for the death of his son.

Grimmer held her as he had on the night of their son’s death. She seemed to relax, slowly, calming as she gathered her wits about her. Grimmer closed his eyes.

“Does that make you feel any better?”

The silence that followed was suffocating. The woman shook her head against his chest, slowly returning his embrace. It wasn’t with the same tension as the last time, a half-hearted thing that was, perhaps, an apology. She had been angry before, rage clouding her senses; even if those actions were harmless, she seemed now to regret it. 

“I just want him back.” she breathed, and though Grimmer only heard a small part of those words, he knew the pleading sound, understood the desperate wish that any grieving mother would have. 

“I want him back.”

Grimmer felt as helpless, as lost, as before. What she wanted was something that he couldn’t give, was something beyond their reach.

Slowly, she pulled away from him. She managed to stand, and though she looked at him, her gaze was still distant.

“You never loved me. I’d realized that some time ago. But I’d hoped that at least you could love our son. I thought if he was yours, you could love him. But you…”

There were tears in her eyes again. She trailed off, taking a slow breath to steady herself.

“There’s no love in your heart. You’ve never had any to give. Not to me, or our child.”

There wasn’t anything that Grimmer could say. Nothing that he could do to dispute her. She seemed to be waiting - hoping, perhaps, that he would tell her she was wrong. Perhaps if he had said something then, her eyes might not have gone so dark, she might not have turned her back. But the fact was that, when his own child - an innocent being who deserved the world - had died, Grimmer didn’t feel a single thing.

* * *

He hadn’t realized it at the time, but those words had been a goodbye. That was something else that was difficult, that Grimmer didn’t quite know how to respond to. What had she wanted him to say? That he would try harder...that he would learn to love her. That they would try again. Or perhaps she had known it would be this way from the beginning, that there were no more chances, that it was a farewell long overdue.

He was probably supposed to be sad. To have lost his son, and for his wife to have left, so soon together...that was probably a very sad thing. 

Even if he couldn’t feel it, he sensed their absence. What had once been a family was gone, taken from him once again. “Family” was not something he was allowed to have, something that was barred from those like him, that didn’t exist. “Wolfgang Grimmer” wasn’t really a person, as much as he was a collection of experiences and learned behaviours.

He understood why she left. She had tried, tirelessly...had kept trying to teach him to love...had given hers so freely, but he had given nothing in return. 

And now, without even their child to comfort her, she had nothing.

It was better this way, that she left. She might find someone better, who could make her happy.

He hoped that she did. She deserved to find love.

**Author's Note:**

> It's ok if you cried I cried too


End file.
